"I've had a luxurious two and a half years off," McLachlan says.
"I've had seventeen months with my daughter. I got to make a record
at a leisurely pace. So now I sort of feel like if I'm going to do
this, I have to do this full on."

McLachlan, who is married to her drummer, Ash Sood, gave birth
to their daughter, India, in April 2002. Only months earlier, the
couple had had endured the passing of McLachlan's mother and Sood's
father. "It was a helluva year," McLachlan says.

Partly as a result, McLachlan's once-single-minded career focus
has now shifted. "It's challenging wrapping other people's minds
around the fact that it's not about me anymore," she says. "It's
about my daughter's happiness. That's where my priority lies."

Most of the songs on Afterglow are based on work
McLachlan started back in December 2001, when she was recording in
fits and starts with her long-time producer Pierre Marchand.

McLachlan admits she had a hard time maintaining perspective on
songs she had been working with for so long. "At one point, in
March, I just got completely depressed," she remembers. "'This is
just, it's all crap. I'm just not supposed to be making music
anymore.' Then I finally realized it was because I was putting so
much pressure on myself to just finish the record. I walked away
from it for a couple of months and didn't listen to the songs. I
didn't play my piano. When I came back to it, I thought, 'Oh, this
isn't bad.'"

The first song she completed for the album is "Fallen," which is
also the album's first single. "We've all messed up in our lives,"
she says, explaining the song. "I suppose it was one of the things.
You lose yourself and you don't really realize it, and all of a
sudden you find that you've gone too far and you don't even know
how you got there."

Surprisingly, there are no songs written for her mother or her
daughter on Afterglow. "The material on the record
explores things from seven or eight years ago that I'm still
working through," she says. "Give me five or six years and I'll be
writing about India and my mother."

But one track, "Push," is "an ode to my hubby," McLachlan
admits. "I get mad so easy," she sings. "Even when I have to push
to see how far you'll go/You're the one true thing I know I can
believe in."

"Sometimes I'm not the greatest at communicating," McLachlan
explains. "So here you go -- this is my apology."

The family will be with McLachlan as she tours behind the album
starting next spring. "India's going to have a bevy of living
aunties and uncles," she says. "All my band and crew just adore
her. By the time we get home I'm going to have to be mean old mom,
because it's only me and Ash and she'll be like, 'Hey, where's my
big, huge family of circus friends to play with all day long?'"

McLachlan will perform her new single, "Fallen," on Fuse's
interactive, live show IMX which airs tomorrow at 6
p.m.